Even if there had been a dozen bluegrass hip hop bands at Musikfest — instead of the one and only, Gangstagrass — this crowd probably would have eaten it up. Gangstagrass' fast rhymes, twanging instruments and heavy beats pulled in one of the largest Main Street audiences I've ever seen and set it bouncing, grinding, yodeling along and waving hands in the air.

“Gunslinging Rambler”: Gangstagrass featuring R-SON.
One of the songs the group played Saturday. From the album "Rappalachia."

Now, perhaps I'm a bit biased toward this kind of mashup, considering I spent many of my formative years playing in a band that layered together rap, acoustic folk and rock. (We called it "pholk." Heh.) But it evidently wasn't just me; people from toddlers to women in their 60s were getting down to Gangstagrass, and even a pretty steady rainshower by the end of the night couldn't keep people away.

"Tell me Bethlehem, do you like that?" emcee Dolio The Sleuth demanded between songs. The soggy crowd cheered its answer.

"Dancin' in the rain makes this a bona-fied block party," Rench agreed.

Dolio shared microphone duties with fellow emcee R-SON, trading rhymes on top of music by Rench with Doug Goldstein on banjo, David Yannuzzi on Dobro, and Jon West on fiddle. Even without the beats, this isn't your granddaddy's hoedown music — it included whispers of contemporary folk, rock and blues, similar to the styles of guys like Dan Tyminski and Jerry Douglas. West's solos had great personality, and I'm a sucker for Dobro work like Yannuzzi's; what I could hear of Goldstein was really good too, but persistent sound problems kept his banjo too quiet to hear for most of the evening.

Rench explained to me afterward that, in addition to playing rhythm guitar and singing, he was also programming the beats as they went. Rather than simply hitting "play" on a backing track, Rench had loaded a handful of his custom beats onto a foot-pedal contraption that let him set tempos and mix the beats together on the fly.

Quite a bit of the show was improvised, actually. In addition to Rench's live mixes and the the instrumental solos, R-SON and Dolio freestyled many if not most of their raps. The guys were spitting rhymes far faster than I could scribble them down in my damp notebook (verbatim quote from my notes: "'VERILITY' / 'TECTONIC INSTABILITY'?"), so you'll have to take my word that their off-the-cuff rhyming was impressively witty and fit in a bunch of references to Bethlehem, Musikfest, the weather and how they were trying to limit their swearing. I also liked the contrast between R-SON and Dolio's styles, with the former's rat-a-tat delivery and the latter's slightly laid back flow.

But mostly, it's just a sound that's fresh, different from almost everything else out there, and a lot of fun to dance to. (Worth mentioning again here: That Emmy-nominated theme song from the FX show "Justified"? Yeah, that was these guys.)

I did overhear one of the night's few dissatisfied listeners grumbling that a lot of the songs sounded the same. Having once had to acquire an appreciation for rap, I understood what he meant: While other kinds of music can use melody to draw you through verse after verse (even if you don't understand the words), rap makes you rely on the lyrics and verbal rhythms.

Gangstagrass did little to fight that impression of sameness, though, by repeating at least three songs from earlier in the night when they learned they had extra time at the end of their set. But the second time through, the emcees improvised new verses.

"Since we did that extended set, we made up some [stuff]," Dolio told me afterward. "Give 'em a little something new."

That was more than good enough to satisfy the crowd that stuck around through the rain. Near where I stood by the front of the stage, Dave Bauer of Sparta, N.J., grinned and bounced along with the beat. "I don't even mind that they're re-playing it!" he yelled over to me.

“Bound To Ride”: Gangstagrass featuring R-SON and Dolio The Sleuth.
One of the songs the group played (twice!) on Saturday. From the album "Rappalachia."

FULL DISCLOSURE: The band provided me with a review copy of Rappalachia, which I used to post the sample tracks above.

Also, I didn't coin the "strings of steel" bit — it's a phrase my bandmate Jonathan came up with, and it's based on a hip hop reference that's probably lost on most of this reading audience. Sorry!

There is no link between where one lives and the incidence of acne.Topical acne medications are made to be used on all acne-prone areas, not just individual lesions.You may need prescription drugs for a short period to get it under control when the herbal acne remedy is not powerful enough to combat the condition.In fact, rubbing the skin or using harsh or abrasive soaps can irritate the skin and make the acne worse.

The comments to this entry have been closed.

JOHN J. MOSER has been around long enough to have seen the original Ramones in a small club in New Jersey, U2 from the fourth row of a theater and Bob Dylan's born-again tours. But he also has the number for All-American Rejects' Nick Wheeler on his cell phone, wrote the first story ever done on Jack's Mannequin and hung out in Wiz Khalifa's hotel room.

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

JODI DUCKETT: As The Morning Call's assistant features editor responsible for entertainment, she spends a lot of time surveying the music landscape and sizing up the Valley's festivals and club scene. She's no expert, but enjoys it all — especially artists who resonated in her younger years, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Tracy Chapman, Santana and Joni Mitchell.

KATHY LAUER-WILLIAMS enjoys all types of music, from roots rock and folk to classical and opera. Music has been a constant backdrop to her life since she first sat on the steps listening to her mother’s Broadway LPs when she was 2. Since becoming a mother herself, she has become well-versed on the growing genre of kindie rock and, with her son in tow, can boast she has seen a majority of the current kid’s performers from Dan Zanes to They Might Be Giants.

STEPHANIE SIGAFOOS: A Jersey native raised in Northeast PA, she was reared in a house littered with 8-tracks, 45s and cassette tapes of The Beatles, Elvis, Meatloaf and Billy Joel. She also grew up on the sounds of Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and can be found traversing the countryside in search of the sounds of a steel guitar. A fan of today's 'new country,' she digs mainstream/country-pop crossovers like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland and other artists that illustrate the genre's diversity.